Shock Therapy
by Celestial Maiden Sukira
Summary: Find out how Max Dillon, also known as the super villain Electro, struggled with coping with therapy at Ravencroft, controlling his powers, dealing with his identity crisis and... a potential love interest? Set in Electro’s POV.


**Title:** Shock Therapy

**Rating:** T (Mild swearing)

**Summary:** Find out how Max Dillon, also known as the super villain Electro, struggled with coping with therapy at Ravencroft, controlling his powers, dealing with his identity crisis and... a potential love interest? Set in Electro's POV.

**Timeline:** Set between _"Interactions"_ (EP 2) and _"Group Therapy"_ (EP 11) (Season 1)

**Pairings:**Max Dillon (Electro)/Ashley Kafka (Because I can and it's my OTP! Anyways, it's fluff. Nothing too serious here, fans.)

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _The Spectacular Spider-Man_ or any of its characters. Story and ideas belong to me. All rights belong to the amazing Greg Wiseman and the "Spectacular Spidey" staff (We need a Season 3 now, guys! Do it NOW!), Stan "The Man" Lee, Steve Ditko, Marvel and Sony.

* * *

My eyes flickered slowly. My protective mask was covering my head. I could feel a small tingle of electricity on the back of my neck. I could even feel the electric currents around me feeding through the walls. Too tired… Can't focus on it…

It's weird mentioning that I can sense electric currents around me. I am…was an electrician until that accident in Doctor Connors' lab made me into this. I was made into a freak and that's all I'll ever be. Max Dillon the electric man. What was that other name that Spider-freak called me? Wait…yeah, Electro. I'm starting to like that name. It feels more suitable to my new form. It feels...more familiar.

What happened to me anyway? I remember fighting Spider-Man at ESU, then I was falling off the radio tower and then…nothing. I must have blacked out. How long has it been since the fight? A day? A week? A month?

I could hear voices around me. No, I'm not going crazy. I could hear a woman's voice calling out to me. Her voice is soft, but calm. She's saying my name - my old name.

"Max? Max, can you hear me?" she whispered. Her voice then faded, speaking a little farther away from me. "I think he's finally regaining consciousness."

Everything hurts. I must have fallen on something really hard, concrete maybe. Gravity would do that. But that doesn't make any sense. I saw blue before I blacked out. What, exactly, did I hit?

_Come on, Max…Electro…whoever you are. Pull yourself together. Do you want to wind up being a vegetable for the rest of your life? _

_Seems better than waking up without a cure,_ I murmured.

_That's Max Dillon talking. He's weak. You know you're better than him! Come on, wake up. Wake up…_Electro_!_

My eyes snapped wide open, coming face to face with a woman in a white room. She staggered back a few steps, obviously a little surprised of my sudden wake up call.

"Sorry," I said quietly, trying to pull myself up from what seemed to be a hospital bed. Pain spread across my chest ached like wildfire. It was hard to breathe, even speak. It was like there was a heavy weight on my chest. My arms shook under my weight, forcing me to lie back onto my pillow.

I groaned. _Holy crap, this hurts like hell._

"Try not to strain yourself, Max," the woman said, already rushing alongside me to calm me down. "You fell almost four stories into a college swimming pool and then you fell unconscious for almost a week. You're lucky you weren't damaged too severely in your..." She paused, looking for a particular word. I knew which one she meant to use. _Go on. Say it._ "Condition."

I concluded she must have been a doctor, judging by the long white coat and clipboard with (probably) my records she had put on a side table. I could see a laminated ID card pinned on the left side of her chest. The name, "KAFKA, ASHLEY" was printed in large typed letters beside a dated picture.

I felt dizzy. I let out a moan before focussing my eyes on her face. Her short jet black hair was carefully framed her small, round light olive face. Looking back at her ID card, she must have used to wear her hair long whenever the photo was taken. Frankly, I thought she looked better in short hair. It made her look older. Her eyes were almost a dark coffee color with long, fluttering mascara lashes. They felt caring, almost enough to tell that I could trust her.

"Where am I, Doc?" I grunted, never taking my eyes off hers for a second.

"You're in the hospital wing at Ravencroft," she replied, sounding a little bit more firm, but still carried the same soothing voice as before.

Her spell instantly broke on me as my eyes widened in horror. "Ravencroft? As in the insane asylum?" I breathed. "Doc, I think you're making a mistake here. I'm not crazy."

"But you _are_ emotionally unstable, Max," Kafka said, picking up her clipboard and flipping through its pages. "The authorities and several eye witnesses mentioned that you're prone to extreme anger, and if you're provoked…" I saw her purse her small pink lips. "Violence."

I clenched my teeth. Thankfully nobody could really see my frustration while my mask was on. Connors must have ratted on me. It had to be that damn snake. He just wants me locked up so that he doesn't have to make me a cure. What a selfish bastard!

"They know _nothing_ about me," I growled, my hands balling into fists around my sheets. "It's all Spider-Man's fault that I'm like this! All I wanted was a cure!"

"And you will," Kafka said, her voice still calm even though I was about ready to let loose an electrical storm inside this very room. "In time. You just need to be patient. I'm here to help you."

"Well then, _Doctor_," I snapped, fists already shaking. I felt that lightning was going to burst out at any second now, but I kept it in. I didn't want to hurt the doc at the moment. She hadn't done anything to me...at least not yet. "If you're here to help me, why don't you start by getting me out of this nuthouse?"

Kafka frowned, almost as if she was sad. "I'm sorry, Max, but until I see some progress from you in our future sessions together, you'll have to remain here."

I rolled my eyes. _Oh, so she's a shrink. Perfect._

"Furthermore," she continued. "You're in no shape to walk yet."

"What do _you_ know of what I can and can't do?" I snarled, already pulling myself off the bed while ignoring the agonizing pain. I was still dressed in my protective suit, thank God, but it didn't help the fact that I was fighting back nausea while bending over and staring at my dark green boots. I stumbled on my feet, not used to putting all of my weight on them at once. I felt Kafka holding me up under her shoulder, and her hands around my back and chest to support my body. It felt warm, comforting…

I didn't need it. Why should I accept her sympathy? She doesn't even know me!

"Let me go, doc," I said in the calmest voice I could muster through all of this pain. "I can stand just fine without you."

"Max, please, get back into bed," she coaxed. "You need to rest."

"I'm fine!"

"But-"

My eyes narrowed. _Stubborn little bitch. _

"I said: I'm _fine_!

In one swift motion, I shoved her hard onto the floor. She gave out a little yelp when she fell on her side and hit the tiled floor, her clipboard slipping out of her hands and sliding under a nearby empty bed. She looked at me with her java eyes, blinking back a couple of stinging tears. I looked back, my eyes suddenly widening at what I had just done. What's wrong with me? I've never been abusive to a woman before in my life. Never! Not even my mother!

"Doctor Kafka, I-" I started, but I suddenly heard hard footsteps from the end of the doorway. A couple of security guards came rushing in, dressed in dark blue uniforms and armed with guns at their hips.

"Doctor Kafka, we heard shouting-"

Suddenly, all of us were silent as both of the guards were looked at me, then at the Doc and then at me again. Their eyes were widening to the size of dinner plates as they pieced the puzzle together... or maybe it was just my appearance. You don't see many guys like me dressed in a rubber suit and have their body conducting electricity very often. I saw them slowly reaching for their guns from their hilts.

It was the Silver Spoon incident all over again. "No. No, you don't understand. I didn't mean-"

"Shut it, freak!" snapped one of the guards, pointing his gun straight at me. He was clean shaven, had a blonde buzz cut and dark eyes. "Step away from the doctor!"

His buddy, a red head with a short spiky hairstyle, rushed over to help Doctor Kafka while Blondie kept an eye (and the trigger) on me. Not that it would do much good. Actually, I don't even know if gunfire would actually hurt me. Either way, I could zap his gun out of his hand in a snap.

But I didn't. I merely watched as Red Head asked if Kafka was alright as she helped her off the floor with one hand. She merely nodded, but I could tell by looking in her eyes that she was a little shook up.

I groaned again, doubling over in pain. _Screw this._

_Focus, Max! You need to get out of here and track down Connors so that you can be cured. Remember your dream of going back to college and meeting someone?_

"Don't shoot him, Nick!" Kafka ordered. "I'm fine. He's just a little confused what's going on-"

"More like nuts, Doc," Nick snapped, never looking away from me for a second. "No offence, but he's a wanted criminal. He'd just do more damage here than what he did back at ESU. If it were up to me, he should be locked with the other super-freaks that the webhead's put behind bars."

Nick's final sentence felt like a hard slap in the face. I felt heat burning around my face. Light flickered off my mask's lenses.

_Oh, that's it!_

Kafka was the first to notice. Her eyes widened. She knew what was going to happen. "Max, don't-!"

In once swift motion, my mask opened up like a second layer of skin, revealing my true, mutated yellow face. Yellow, flickering sparks danced all around my head, some of them short circuiting a couple of florescent lights above me. I saw the color drain from both of the guards' faces, mouths hanging open like wide-mouth bass when they saw the lights explode and the glass shatter in a matter of seconds.

"A freak, am I?" I snarled, concentrating on cupping a ball of lightning in my hand while stepping forward. "Maybe _you're_ the freaks here!"

I grinned. Oh, this was going to feel _good_.

"Max, stop it!" Kafka screamed. Her pretty face was now flushed with terror.

"My name is _not_ Max!" I roared. "I'm Electro! I'm-"

Dizziness suddenly hit my line of vision like a hard hit to the head. My head was throbbing through various waves of pain hitting my skull. The corners of the room were growing black and white spots. I felt myself stumbling forward, my feet feeling heavier with every step under my arched body. I felt myself shaking, almost convulsing between concentrating on the ball of lightning and keeping myself steady on the ground. Everything was spinning, twisting and swinging back in the opposite direction, making everything an absolute blur.

I was losing control.

"Get away from me! Get...away..."

I felt myself falling, unable to keep myself on equal footing. I hit the cold ceramic tiles on the floor face first. A wave of nausea crept up and burned my throat, almost like I had swallowed battery acid. It was an all too familiar acidic taste, taking me back to when I had fought Spider-Man on the ESU radio tower...

I saw sparks dance around me on the floor, the heat swelling the tiles to the point of cracking. I ignored the panicked guards and looked up at a blurry Doctor Kafka, who merely stared at me in pure fright, a hand covering her mouth to muffle a scream. I looked into her eyes. She looked like she was on the brink of crying. Why was she tormenting me so much?

I thought I saw her running out of the doorway, but I can't make her image out. I'm still too exhausted. The Doc had been right.

_Damn you, Spider-Man... _

The blackness overtook my vision and then, my mind. Silence followed suit.

* * *

_**A/N:**__ Yay! New story!__How was that, you guys?_

_Sorry about not updating my other works. School's been a pain (University does that to you). However, this is one I'll (hopefully) get done in less than 15-20 chapters (I'm estimating here, so it's not final yet). This little bunny started when I re-watched my entire first season DVD set back a few months ago. I really LOVE Electro as a villain (and I __love__ Crispin Freeman's voice acting for this character. It's like Alucard being angry on electric steroids. __Seriously__.) And I love his character design for this series. His character's kind of in the middle of everything in Season 1, until where he finally loses it in Season 2 and becomes a (if not hopeless team player for the Sinister Six) villain. So when I re-watched "Group Therapy", little hints came up in the first 5 minutes of the episode that got me to do this. _

_So, dying for more "Shock Therapy"? Read and review!_


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